BetterHelpReviews of betterhelp.com

App is advertised as a life coaching service for US$65 a week, you get a membership that according to the ad you can cancel anytime. Truth is you pay up front for a month (US$260) and you can no longer cancel because they block your account and you are no longer able to access the billing information. It’s a fraud.

Great for neurotypicals with basic problems. Any possibility of ever experiencing a crisis situation? Look elsewhere. I thought things were going well. My first counselor was sketchy and useless, but my second one was fairly competent, giving me lots of advice and very successfully supporting me as I worked through the rough patch I was going through. While I understood that BetterHelp does not help with crisis situations specifically, what I didn't know is that they will not tolerate clients experiencing any form of crisis. As a matter of fact, they outright abandon them. My counselor suggested that she may not be a good fit because she was having trouble finding time to communicate with me due to the holiday schedule, which is understandable. I asked who to contact and what to ask in order to get a more qualified counselor due to my diagnoses, but she never specified. Instead, after I admitted once again to struggles with suicidal ideation, going into detail about some of the delusions I had been having, I tried to log in the next day only for the website to claim that I did not have a valid account. In my email account, I find that the money was refunded on my PayPal account as well. Finally, after discovering my account was gone AND having the money refunded, someone bothered to contact me, determined that "online counseling may not be the best resource for you," and sent me a link to PsychologyToday so I could "consider scheduling an intake with a licensed counselor who can provide [me] with in-person counseling in [my] area". I don't understand why their counselors are not trained to hold the hand of their clients through making an appointment with a proper counselor. I do not understand why the crisis situation that I was in meant that the best course of action was "cut and run," though I can see the presumed liability involved. However, due to the fact that people with any kind of mental illness can reach a crisis situation, that makes this business incredibly unsafe for anyone who might need their services. Every single client currently enrolled in their services may one day experience the feeling of wanting to end their life and, if they risk sharing it with their BetterHelp counselor, they may find themselves with even more reason to back the idea that no one cares if they do it. I am disgusted by the lack of compassion from a company that claims to help the mentally ill. I do not see how dropping clientelle entirely will somehow "wipe the blood from their hands" if the client does decide to end their life. All I see is the potential for them to destroy the lives of thousands of people because they will not support them at their worst. A company that plays into the stigma surrounding suicide in a way that is not only careless, but outright dangerous.

Terrible company. The "therapists" provide no real tools for dealing with anything. They will spend many weeks just asking questions while collecting your money, and some of them don't respond any more frequently than once or twice per week when you are typically paying $55 per week to use the service. I think it is a ripoff and they are frauds.

This is an unethical, exploitative service. The website promises a 1 week trial, but once you sign up you are immediately charged and have no way of cancelling your membership within the 1 week. Additionally, I indicated that I was in no way interested in any sort of spiritual counselling. I was then matched with a Christian counselor who listened to me politely for a few messages before the started to insist that there was a "spiritual solution" to my troubles. The counselor was clearly using the site as a means of finding desperate, unhappy people to then recruit to her belief system. Still, Betterhelp promises to easily re-match you to a more suitable counselor. Should be easy, right? So I was rematched and went back through the process of detailing what I was looking for in counseling. What did I receive in response? A brief message telling me that what I was going through sounded really tough. No suggestions, nothing else. Just a single sentence reply expressing sympathy when I was looking at tools to deal with a difficult situation. Now, what are my choices for cancelling? I can cancel now and still pay the full month, and for what? Nothing. No refund, and definitely no help. So clearly this is a site that preys on the desperate and offers nothing in return.

This company charged me the full amount of the month prior to starting counseling and would not reimburse me when I promptly canceled counseling. I work at a law firm and understand the importance of reading the terms before signing contracts, and their terms clearly stated that the cost was $35-$75 a week following counseling. I would have no issue paying $260 over multiple sessions, but was never informed that I would be immediately charged for multiple sessions or prior to beginning my counseling. I find this extremely disappointing and was looking forward to using their service before they took advantage of my credit card information and were not transparent with me.

I paid 45 dollars to speak with a therapist, and they never matched me with anyone. I waited 48 hours, and I received the same message numerous times saying that they were looking for a therapist for me. Don't waste your money on this service.

Worst service and cheating!! First of all, they are not professional counselors that the admin herself told me and the term they keep using 'licensed counselors' is misleading to the common people. This means the therapists that you talk to won't be dealing with you professionally. Second the non real time communication with they responding only minimum of a next day can be deterrent to many. Third, there billing plan is confusing and not only it is very expensive but they keep changing the plan without your consent that by the end of the month you find lot of unaccounted transactions !! Got fed up with them and the betrayal of BH that I quit and don't recommend this to anybody!! Dont sign up !!

My counsellor was abysmal, and the software wouldn't work properly - I wanted a video chat, which wouldn't work and then the next session was text despite me saying I wasn't comfortable with that format. She showed little insight, forgot VERY important details from session to session, and in my final session asked me inappropriate questions about my dying dad and told me that he was very close to dying in the next few days despite me saying that I wasn't there to talk about his condition - I was there to talk about my emotions about it. Very unprofessional, and the format is not even a sliver as effective for me as traditional face to face. If you're in a vulnerable place where you need to feel an actual human connection, then do not use this service. Also - as the lady below said - BetterHelp charges $260 for "unlimited" text and live sessions in a month. Sounds amazing, right? Here's the truth: live sessions are only a half hour in length and you cannot schedule more than one per week (that is NOT "unlimited"). You also cannot schedule more than one session at a time - so once you finish a session, you can THEN set up another, meaning there is no way to establish a regular time each week nor to ensure live sessions work with your schedule. So, at best, IF you can get the sessions with your chosen counselor, you can have two hours of counseling per month for $260, which is $115/hour - not crazy, but not cheap, and doesn't let you really address issues in any depth, as a half hour per week is not enough. In addition, your insurance will not cover it - so you're probably way better off finding a "regular" therapist that takes insurance.